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When I think of an elephant, the adorable Dumbo or Horton Hears a Who—usually fictional representations—come to mind first. These characters have colored our collective understanding of the massive mammal for decades because, for most people, they’re the only “elephant” they’ll ever see up close.
Actual elephants in Western culture are usually restricted to zoos, but during the ice ages—between 2.6 million and 11,700 years ago—more than 50 different elephant relatives (mammoths and mastodon) roamed the entire globe. Now? Only three species remain.
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Opening Monday, November 13, at the American Museum of Natural History, “The Secret World of Elephants” showcases impressive recreations of our modern-day elephants, a wooly mammoth and even dwarf elephants the size of a dog, surrounded by interactive displays about their incredible minds and bodies, their interactions with humans and the environment and what needs to be done to ensure their survival.
Walking into the new exhibit, a giant wooly mammoth greeted me as it “shed” its winter coat. Its massive tusks were phenomenal to behold and diagonal to that, a life-size African elephant lit up with projections displaying its insides. I touched a panel to feel the low sound waves elephants use (infrasound) to communicate with others through the ground and turned a wheel to make a miniature elephant model flap its ears to disperse heat.
I also learned that elephants typically eat 300 to 500 pounds of plant food a day and their poop can tell you a lot about their environment. There are actually models of their spherical feces that you can interact with to see what might be inside (gross but enlightening!).
I also found out that elephants massively affect the world around them by bringing plant seeds with them on their journeys (yes, through their droppings) and by keeping vegetation at bay and thriving by carving out paths in jungles and savannas and grazing on grasses and leaves. They also create watering holes, which is vital to other wildlife.
Elephants travel in herds with their families, make close social bonds and communicate by voice, touch and gesture. All of this is represented through awesome interactive screens you can manipulate to learn more. I even got to hear different elephant vocalizations, including a greeting, a courtship cry, a playful croon, and a mourning yowl.
By the end of the exhibit, I found myself saddened by how humans have helped decimate their populations through poaching, exploitation and conflict. A brief section shows how humans have reduced them to circus animals and even weapons for war.
Before I left, and I advise you to do the same, I watched a 12-minute documentary about an elephant sanctuary in northern Kenya called Reteti, which is owned by the local Samburu community. They take in and rehabilitate orphaned and abandoned elephant calves before releasing them back into the wild. Particularly, it follows the story of Shaba, a 15-month-old orphaned female who grew to become the sanctuary’s first matriarch. It’s a touching example of how some humans are trying their best to reverse the damage we’ve done to elephants, or at least make a difference.
The end of the exhibit also proposes ways we can all help, from legislative measures against the ivory trade to logistics on the ground (like making paths for these elephant populations that would reduce the destruction of farmland). By the time I left “Secrets World of Elephants,” I felt like we are beginning to make the right decisions after so many years of not.
The exhibit isn’t related to Secrets of the Elephants, the National Geographic documentary narrated by Natalie Portman. And while I can attest that is worth a watch, there is something much more magical to seeing these beings in person, even if they are models.
“You can see things in three dimensions. You can experience what we’re trying to show … and that’s a qualitative difference, which continues to bring people to the Natural History Museum,” says Ross MacPhee, the exhibit’s curator and Curator Emeritus for the Department of Mammalogy. “When we put all of this effort in presenting what we’re trying to do, and to do it in a way that is meant to be engrossing and it’s meant to be the sort of thing you want people to nod their heads and say ‘I didn’t know that!’ ‘How can that be true?’”
The “Secret World of Elephants” at the American Museum of Natural History opens Monday, November 13. Tickets are $28 for adults, $16.50 for children (ages 3-12), and $22.50 for seniors and students. Timed-entry tickets must be reserved in advance at amnh.org/tickets.